According to Jim: Movie House
by Thor2000
Summary: Jim becoming friends with one of Cheryl's old boyfriends who is now in the movie business. This story occurs before Dana married.
1. Chapter 1

In a home on the north side of Chicago was a home. This was the home of a contractor and builder named James Belushi – Jim to his family and friends. Jim was a friendly enough fellow, kind of boisterous and unpredictable, with a big heart and a bigger mouth. No one knew just what stupid act Jim was going to do next, but he was never dangerous. Jim considered himself a man's man, and he had quite a different view of the world around him. He was either deserving of what he should get, or willing to do what it took to get what he wanted.

"Daddy…" His long haired daughter Ruby appeared at the side of the chair with her long tresses bound into a ponytail and her younger sister, Gracie, by her adorned in pig-tails..

"Girls…" Jim tried to be what he thought was a dutiful father. "Can't you see that daddy is trying to read the sports page of the newspaper? Is it okay to bother him?"

"No?"

"Very good."

"Can we have new bicycles?" They bothered him anyway. All Jim could do was stare over the top of the newspaper and try to think of a response to make. When nothing came to him, he took a deep long breath, and looked back to his beloved and beautiful little girls.

"What's wrong with your old ones." He asked.

"They're little baby bicycles."

"I see…" Jim tried to rationalize their thoughts as if they were adults, but at the same time, he tried to take advantage of the way they thought. "Well, you know, there's little kids in Africa who don't even have bicycles."

"Well," Gracie outsmarted him. "If you get us new bikes, we'll send them our old ones."

"Do you know how much it costs to ship a bicycle to Africa?" Jim turned the tables back on them. "I'm sorry, girls, but I just had to replace the water heater and, Gracie, you just had to get braces. I can't afford it right now."

"But you just got that Chicago Bears Ceremonial Memory Annual Mug."

"That's a necessity." Jim tried to con his own daughters. "I had to have it."

"Well," Gracie looked to her sister and back to her father as her mother entered the dining room behind them. "If we can save the money, can we get new bikes?"

"Why sure!" Jim condescendingly grinned as the girls cheered and scampered excitedly past their mother at the dining table. Blonde, statuesque and as beautiful as a Norse goddess brought to life, Cheryl Belushi straightened her lip exasperatingly to her chuckling husband.

"It'll take them years!" Jim cracked out loud.

"Jim," Cheryl wandered over to him with a handful of napkins still in her hand. "Why can't you just buy them bikes? They're just little kids."

"What better time to teach them the value of money?" Jim slowly lifted the newspaper back up. "And save a lot of mine." He chuckled to himself a bit longer as his wife set the table for seven people. Nearly every night, Cheryl the happy homemaker opened her heart to her brother and sister to partake in dinner with her family. Her sister, Dana, was the epitome of the girl next door with radiant blue eyes and long tresses of brown hair and blonde highlights. She looked like a movie star, but she had the neuroses of a teenage girl lamenting over her single life and her future. Andy on the other hand was full of himself. Blonde and a bit rotund, he was often the subject of both good-natured and sometimes sadistic insults spewed from Dana's perfect ruby lips. There was still a lot of boy in the man that was Andy from his love of science fiction to his anxiety over the opposite sex, but what annoyed Dana and even Cheryl was how Andy had bonded with Jim in the throes of male brotherhood and unity. Andy was Jim's cohort in mischief and accomplice in deception, but he was also the weak chink of armor in Jim's cavalcade of lies. It was often Andy that spewed the truth whenever Jim stayed out late or did something behind Cheryl's back. It was almost as if their lives were a TV series on the ABC Network.

"Cheryl," Jim bothered Cheryl as she set the table for dinner rather than help her with it, but she graciously continued setting out placemats and silverware. "Look at this, there's a movie production team coming to our neighborhood to film a movie and they're looking for people to offer their homes to film some scenes. We got a home; why don't we do that?"

"I don't know, Jim." Cheryl looked up radiantly as she prepared Jim's head of the house place at the head of the table. "I don't think I want a lot of strangers in our home."

"Cheryl," Jim had a scheme ready in the back of his head if he needed it. "I want to do this. I mean, we don't know if they'll even consider us. Let's at least make an appointment with the locations director."

"Sounds exciting, I guess," Cheryl started grinning at the idea. "And if we get paid we can take care of a few things and get the girls bikes."

"We can do that too." Jim had aspirations of using any movie money to get a pool table.

"What kind of movie is it?" Cheryl set aside a handful of silverware. "Does it say who the actors will be?"

"What, oh…" Jim rechecked the article. "It just says it's a nice family-based movie directed by a guy named James Danvers."

"Did you say James Danvers?" Cheryl's eyes went wide as if she had seen a ghost from her past. She yanked the newspaper from her husband and spread out the article to read it for herself. No, it couldn't be! It just couldn't!

"You are getting excited about this!" Jim beamed ear to ear. "Imagine, our home in the movies…."

"On second thought…." Cheryl began having other thoughts. "I don't want to do it."

"What!" Jim was incredulous. "Why not?"

"Jim…" Cheryl sounded weakly upset yet absolute. "I don't want all those strangers here tearing up our home and God knows what else. I don't want to do it."

"But I really want to do this!" Jim whined like a big kid.

"Well, I…" Cheryl sounded as if she were considering it. "No."

"Well, why not?"

"Jim…" The blonde beauty knew her husband. "I want you to promise you won't call that number to have them look at our house."

"Fine."

"I want you to promise that you won't have Andy call that number to have them look at our house." Cheryl exacted another promise as Jim groaned again.

"Fine…"

"The kids either!"

Jim started groaning louder.


	2. Chapter 2

For some fifty-five odd years, the old Montgomery House was a local reputed haunted house on Chicago's west side. The local Red Lion's Club had used the location to feature their regular Halloween attraction to raise money for needy kids, but following the last thunderstorm, the back porch had collapsed and part of the roof had caved into a second floor bedroom. The location was now leveled and Jim's company was building a restaurant on the site to be called the Asian Buffet. Jim's brother-in-law, Andy Harridge, already had visions of repeated visits to the sushi table and loading up on shrimp and calamari before the place was even built. Marking off the days on the calendar to the opening, he took his large but proud girth on a lively strut through the worksite and entered the portable office carrying a box of doughnuts. Jim looked up from his blueprints as Andy entered.

"How's my favorite brother-in-law?" He said everyday.

"I'm your only brother-in-law." Jim reminded him everyday.

"Well, at least until Dana sinks her teeth in and drains one dry." Andy sniped his sister in her absence. "Jelly doughnut?" He opened the doughnut box into Jim's direction.

"Don't mind if I do…" Jim started reaching for a grape-filled doughnut.

"Not that one." Andy watched as Jim started for the strawberry. "Not that one…." Jim finally took the lemon-filled one.

"Your sister really gets on my nerves." Jim turned back to his work with the lemon-filled doughnut as his only solace.

"Do what I do…" Andy walked through the one room trailer and sat at his desk next to the bathroom. "Tell her off."

"Not Dana - Cheryl." Jim was already licking his fingers of the glaze from the doughnut. "Did you see that article about the movie crew filming in our neighborhood? She won't let me call to let them see the house to film in it. I just so wanted to get the house in the movies."

"Well, if that's just it…" Andy had finished his doughnut and was licking his hand. "I'm with you, buddy. I'll call them for you."

"I promised Cheryl I wouldn't let you or the kids call either." Jim confessed.

"Why that's down-right diabolical!"

"I know!" Jim was nodding his head in agreement. "But you know… Cheryl said nothing about you calling about your house!"

"Jim…" Andy was feeling nostalgically close to Jim and briefly hugged him. "I'm touched. Thank you, thank you so much. I'm so honored, but… what about your house?"

"Andy…" Jim was scheming again. "You live across the street from me. Invite the guy to your house and then invite him over to mine for drinks or something. I keep my promise, he sees both our houses and maybe we can get both our houses in the movies!"

"Jim, that's brilliant." Andy shook his head in awe. "You just got to leave your brain to science."

"I'll consider it." Jim stood arrogant in the bizarre praise. "Now, back to work…." He started reaching for the blueberry doughnut in the box.

"Not that one." Andy slapped his hand. Jim gave him a warning glance and took the other lemon-filled one. He placed it in his mouth and turned to his seat while a rap came from the trailer door. Andy looked to see who it was just as the door opened and a figure stepped up into the trailer. Jim turned and looked to the bearded gentleman with sunglasses wearing a white shirt and brown khaki pants. His dark hair was cut short on top and he wore a man's earring in his left ear. Tugging off the glasses, their visitor looked them over with piercing brown eyes.

"If this is about the loan, the check is in the mail." Andy leaned slightly back.

"No, I'm James Danvers…" The guest introduced himself while dropping his glasses in his shirt pocket. "I was wanting…"

"James Danvers?" Jim did an almost over-ecstatic double take. "The same James Danvers directing a movie, here, in Chicago?"

"Yeah," Danvers briefly scanned the interior of the office over. "I'm renting the empty restaurant in town and I need to hire a small crew to design an interior and a few fronts. I'm on a budget and I saw your placard from the street and I prefer hiring local non-union contractors."

Jim and Andy looked at each other barely able to hold in their hysteric joy over the opportunity.

"Can you fit in the job?" Danvers asked.

"Definitely!" Jim grinned at his impromptu luck and serendipity. "In fact, why don't we talk it over dinner at my home? I bet you Hollywood types never get home cooking and my little woman is just the greatest cook in the world!"

"Uh, Jim…" Andy started seeing his previous plans going astray. "How about my…."

"Andy, geniuses are talking here." Jim looked back willingly to do anything for this job especially if it meant getting this guy to see his house. "I live at 412 Maple Street, and Mr. Danvers, I would love to have a hand designing your movie."

"Great…" Danvers shook Jim's hand. "412 Maple, I can be there and I'll bring you the specifications for what I'm looking for."

"I'll see you there!" Jim looked back to Andy while trying to contain the huge grin trying to spread to his face. Danvers pulled out his glasses as he turned his way out and exited back out into the muggy Chicago heat. In Danvers' absence, Jim started to doing a short brief egocentric victory dance.

"Now, no one's seeing my house." He reacted disgustedly upset and dropped to his seat.

"So he sees mine first and yours last…" Jim mugged ear-to-ear content in his dealing. "I got a job and maybe a house in the movie. I can't wait for the cash to roll in."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Andy sounded upset. "But you still got to get Cheryl to cook him dinner." He stared into his doughnut box. "Okay, where's my blueberry?"


	3. Chapter 3

PART THREE

When Dana Harridge jogged from her apartment to her sister's house, she failed to notice that cars driven by guys slowed to check her out. Male bicyclists coasted with their brakes on and teenage boys' heads turned as she passed by them down the street. Her long brown hair bounced and tossed from her shoulders. Her vibrant figure bounced and moved within her shorts and t-shirt from the impact of her feet striking the sidewalk. As her sister's home came into view, Dana crossed the yard at the property line, hopped effortlessly on to the porch and allowed herself into the house with the promising determination of a pre-Olympic runner.

"Hey…" Cheryl lit up to see her sister. Collecting her son's toys, Cheryl placed several action figures on the sofa and paused from dragging the vacuum cleaner to sit up erect on her knees. Roughly four and a half feet tall from the floor, she switched off the vacuum and turned back to her sister. "You're exercising again? Got a date?"

"Kind of," Dana pulled a piece of pink paper from her hip pocket. "I'm here about this. Ruby and Gracie got into my apartment and cleaned it up. They left me an itemized list."

"Washed dishes - five dollars, cleaned floor – ten dollars, made the bed – twelve dollars…" Cheryl read the note and skipped down to the full amount of the juvenile bill at the bottom. "A hundred and forty-five dollars." She looked back to her sister. "I'm so sorry, Dana. Jim is trying to get them to earn the money for new bicycles. You don't have to pay this."

"I should say not." Dana pushed aside her nephew's toys t sit on the sofa. "I can hire professionals to clean my place if I want it clean." She paused to look around the suburban paradise her sister called home. "Where are the midget housekeepers?"

"They drafted Kyle to help them rake the leaves in Andy's yard." Cheryl stood up while cracking her knees. "I guess they'll leave him a bill too. So… tell me about your date; is he cute?"

"It's not a date per say." Dana stood and followed Cheryl striding back through the house to the kitchen. "I'm auditioning for the role of an extra in the movie being filmed on your block. I think I could be a great actress; I mean, don't I just look like I should be a great actress. Remember my fifth grade play?"

"You were a flower."

"Miss McBeal said I was the best flower in the whole fifth grade!" Dana was entranced by her own reflection in the kitchen windows a second. "I could be discovered, do movies, date rock stars and get married to Orlando Bloom!"

Cheryl looked up disbelievingly from the dishwasher.

"Cheryl, don't hose my buzz!" Dana really wanted to hob-knob with movie stars. "Couldn't you see me dating George Clooney?"

"I can see you dating George Burns!" Cheryl sighed and leaned back on the counter. "I don't want to hear about this movie again. Jim was trying to con me last night to let them film in our house."

Dana's face started getting really excited.

"No!" Cheryl put her foot down.

"Why not?" Dana liked the idea and tried to change her mind. "I bet they'd pay good money."

"I know, but…" Cheryl started to turn out to the dining room then turned back to Dana. "I was going to at first, but then I… changed my mind." Shetook a deep breath and shifted her weight to her other hip. Tugging at her Capri pants, she poured the last of the coffee in the glass pot to two cups and turned with them both in hand to her sister starting to sit at the table. She needed this sisterly moment. She had to get her anxiety out. "I was about to, but then I discovered who the director was."

"Who's the director?" Dana regally pulled a lock of long brown hair past her right ear as she lifted her cup with her left hand.

"Jimmy Danvers."

"Jimmy Danvers…." Dana recalled that name. "That sounds so familiar…."

"I dated him in high school." Cheryl confessed. "We were pretty close, but it ended badly. I wanted to go to one college and he wanted to marry me and take me to Hollywood with him to pursue his career. I'm just… not willing to run into him again."

"Was he cute?"

"Dana!"

"Well, nothing's keeping me from dating him!" Dana saw another venue to love and success. "Look, Cheryl, maybe he doesn't remember you. It's been, what? Twenty years."

"He remembers me." Cheryl reacted as if she was in a trance briefly and sipped her coffee. "We were once hot and heavy."

"What's hot and heavy?" Gracie, Ruby and their brother Kyle had appeared out of nowhere behind them. Dana and Cheryl jumped from the surprise appearance and looked at the tired and sweaty youngsters. Andy's yard had obviously been a lot of work, and Kyle must have done the worst of it. He was dirty, covered in leaves and brambles, but his sisters were just barely fatigued. Ruby stood as the obvious leader of the pack before the two daughters.

"Nothing!" Cheryl cried out. "Let's get you kids cleaned up."

"Did you find our bill?" Ruby turned to her Aunt Dana.

"I'm not paying it, midget maid!"

"Then we'll put the dirt all back…" Gracie threatened as her mother lurched her around to the back stairs. Cheryl's homemaking duties were strained to the max as the phone rang over the sound of the screaming kids. Dana reached to answer it, but upon hearing her brother-in-law's voice, she passed it quickly to her sister. Cheryl snarled at the consequences and took the receiver as she brushed her blonde hair aside.

"Cheryl," Jim talked through the phone. "Is it okay if I bring a client to dinner?"

"Yeah, sure," Cheryl sent Kyle up the back stairs. "I'll just set another seat… wait a second! Did you call that movie crew to see the house!"

"Cheryl, this is a client." Jim mugged a bit. "I can honestly say I did not call anyone." He turned with a grin to Andy.


	4. Chapter 4

PART FOUR

The wood gate to the family backyard opened up and two girls came skipping inside excitedly. Ruby was carrying a tin coffee can with a plastic lid with a hole cut into it for the money that had been stuffed into it. Gracie had the plastic milk jug her father had thrown out in the trash. With her brother Kyle at her side, she had stood outside the corner market asking for donations to the needy except she had told no one that she was the needy. Gracie had told the same story door to door as she went through the neighborhood. Her eyes glinted with excitement and her hand gripped her can tightly to keep from dropping it under the weight of the coins in it. Ruby's plastic jug had to be so much heavier than she had done.

"We did so good today!" Ruby beamed as she lifted the money-filled jug to the top of the patio table.

"Yeah," Gracie remained a partnership with her sister. "I bet we clearly made well over a million dollars!"

"Yeah!" Kyle just wanted to be a part of their camaraderie.

"Okay," Ruby remained in charge. "Tomorrow, we hit the other part of town and I stand in front of the market. Kyle, do you remember the story we taught you?"

"My mommy lost her job…" Kyle pretended to be sad and upset. "And our daddy is in the hospital…. How's that!" He pepped up over his performance.

"Perfect!"

"Kids, where have you been?" Their mother appeared at the back door. "Get in here and wash up for dinner."

"How are you feeling, mommy?" Kyle reacted as one of his sisters quickly jerked him into the house and up the back stairs from the kitchen. Cheryl's heart went out to her little bundles of joy and turned to the vegetables boiling on the stove.

"What are we eating tonight, mommy?" Ruby called from the bathroom at the top of the stairs.

"I got liver and Brussels sprouts." Cheryl was happy at the way her dinner was coming, but her kids screamed out in distaste to that forbidden combination. Recalling her own childhood, she just ignored their juvenile tastes and carried her mashed potatoes out to place on the dinner table. Jim was actually fretting over the dinner arrangements by placing his would-be client as close to him and as far away from Dana as possible.

"Jim…" She mused romantically over this new aspect of her partner. "You are really nervous over this client. They must a big deal."

"Sure is." Jim checked the place mats and evened them all with the table. "This job could land me all sorts of contracts."

"You didn't call the number in the paper, did you?" She checked again.

"Cheryl…" Andy strolled over in his best white shirt and filled up on the deviled eggs laid out as hors deurves for the guest. "You have to believe Jim this time. He didn't call anyone this time."

"It's true." Jim appeared solemn. "I didn't call the number." He stood still as his wife looked him over for that same glint he had every time he had deceived her. She perused his expression, scrutinized his appearance and tried to mentally read his thoughts. For once, he seemed genuine.

"Okay, Jim," She kissed him. "I believe you. It's just that sometimes, you know…" Her husband just chuckled over her distrust of him. Sometimes, he did do as she wished, but she failed to realize that there was always a way around those whims. This time, he didn't have to go through the loophole. He was in the clear!

"I believe you." Cheryl beamed and backed into the kitchen for the rolls to go with dinner. His voice chuckling, Jim just turned into the living room with Andy. Dana was attired in her best informal attire. It was a form-fitting white sweater and black pleated skirt that hung down over her knees. She wanted to appear virginal and chaste, but her hair was styled to suggest unbridled wanton availability.

"So, Jim," She finished off her second deviled egg. "Is this guy cute? Single? Straight? Give me something here."

"Well," Jim adjusted the deviled eggs to a pattern to conceal the missing ones. "He just happens to be very up in the movie-making business. His name is James Danvers and…"

There was a crash in the kitchen as Cheryl felt a disturbance in space-time around and she came running out to face her husband in shock. Her face was white, her eyes widened in fear and her expression awash in fear. Her lips were turning pale while her jaw dropped, but her hands also curled into fists. Dana also became afraid for Cheryl, but her look was nowhere as stunned as her sister's.

"You lied!" Cheryl started pounding her husband's chest. "You called the number!"

"No, I didn't!" Her six-foot-three husband re-established her faith in him by holding her thin wrists from hitting him. "He came to me. He hired me to construct sets for his movie!"

"It's true, Cheryl." Andy was still eating deviled eggs. "He was at the site and everything. He even took one of my doughnuts."

"No, no, no, no…" The beautiful blonde wife and mother turned to hide in the kitchen.

"What's the big deal?" Jim wanted answers.

"Jim, she knows him!" Dana filled in the answers. "They used to date. She's been avoiding him for years."

The truth hit Jim with a mild blow to his heart. Feeling like a bit idiot, he also knew it wasn't his fault. Sighing and rolling his eyes, he realized what he had to do and pressed his way through the swinging door to the kitchen. Sitting at the breakfast table in her blue blouse and violet pants, she was faintly turning over the salad in the bowl on the table. At the sight of her idiot husband, she stood to avoid him and braced for strength at the sink.

"Why didn't you tell me from the start you knew Jimmy?" He asked.

"I was embarrassed." She spoke just under her breath. "I once loved him. I wanted to forget he ever existed."

"Did he ever hurt you?"

"No, I mean, he broke my heart, but he never hurt me." She shifted her weight defeatedly onto her left leg. "We were as close as I am now with you, but he wanted me to give up too much for him. I starred in one of his amateur films, and he tried to get me to skip college to live with him in Los Angeles. We ended things with a bad fight." She looked up to her spouse demurely crestfallen.

"I guess watching him become successful was a bit short of the revenge you wished on him." Jim guessed. "What sort of movie did you do with him?"

"Oh, just some stupid monster movie…." She incoherently mumbled the name of it embarrassingly under her breath.

"I didn't get that." Jim tilted his ears to her crumbling voice. "What was that again?"

"Attack of the…." Cheryl mumbled again.

"What? What?"

"Attack of the Fifty-Foot Cheerleaders!" Cheryl spoke up embarrassed. "He asked me to wear this skimpy little rag and to rip up all these little buildings and cars! I did it for him because I thought he loved me and that we'd be together forever, but instead he used me for his sick fantasy and vanished forever."

"So what ever happened to this movie?"

"Jim!" She heard activity out the corner of her ear. Peeking from the kitchen, she looked out the kitchen door and saw Andy letting James Danvers into the house. Clad in a dark shirt with a dark blue tie and black pants, he recognized Andy and asked about his hosts. Dana immediately started hitting on him romantically before draping her self over his side to practice being his wife.

"You know, Cheryl…" Jim thought it over. "Chances are… he doesn't even remember you."

"You think?"

"Come on…" He scoffed at the idea. "Who looks the same way they did in high school? That's a long time ago!"

"Yeah!" Cheryl perked up emotionally and grabbed the salad and bowl of rolls. Leading the way, Jim blocked her view of Danvers for the minute and looked to the empty hors d'oeuvre tray then shot a look at Andy finishing off the last deviled egg.

"Hey, Jimmy, you made it." He shook Danvers hand. "You met my in-laws."

"Yeah," Jimmy Danvers looked round the room. "It's a very nice place, Jim. Very nice, a lot nicer than a lot of movie sets I've used."

"So would you like to use it in your movie?" Jim saw a moment.

"Maybe, just maybe…"

"And this is the little lady who created it…" Andy started forcing Cheryl out to meet Danvers so she couldn't hide behind her husband. Jim tried to push him away, but the proud brother insisted on dragging his sister out to meet the director. "My sister…"

"Cheryl!" James Danvers was taken aback and he felt his heart start pumping again in her presence.

"You know her?"

"Wouldn't recognize me, huh!" Cheryl started swatting her husband and idiotic brother.

"My god, Cheryl…" Danvers forgot where he was and tried to hug her. Cheryl wasn't responsive at first, but then allowed herself to be gracious enough to allow Jimmy to hug her. "You look incredible… you haven't changed a bit. A day doesn't go by that I don't think of you."

"What?" She wasn't in the mood to be gracious. Looking over, she noticed her husband, brother and sister standing and replicating the see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil statues.

"Cheryl, we parted so badly I tried finding you several times to make things up with you." He realized she was now married and stepped back from her. "I don't think I ever fell out of love with you."

"Oh, Jimmy…." Cheryl finally forgave him and was now more into a mood to hug him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa…." Jim started to remind his wife she was married to him. "Are you forgetting you're married here?"

"I'm sorry, Jim." Danvers placed his hand speechlessly over his mouth and tried to recompose himself. "But Cheryl was once so important to me. After my first movie was a success, I tried contacting her through her parents, and someone told me you was living in Russia." Danvers turned to Dana. "It was you!"

"Oh yeah…." Dana suddenly started recalling her college years. "Cheryl, Jimmy called while you were in the shower fifteen years ago."

"Someone else told me you were doing missionary work in Zimbabwe." Danvers recalled another call.

"Was that you?" Andy looked up surprised. "What a small world. Small world…." He started laughing.

"Yeah, yeah, a small world…" Jim started getting frustrated and jealous.

"So, Jimmy," Cheryl and Dana sat down on opposite sides of Jimmy. "What are you doing now?" Cheryl reacted interested in his current life.

"I'm working on a family-themed movie with Kate Winslet and Luke Wilson here in the area." He answered.

"Is there a role for me in it?" Dana was trying to bewitch him with her coquettish looks and tosses of her hair.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Andy hovered the back of the sofa. "Well, Jim and I want to know if we still got the job?"

"Absolutely." Jimmy promised. "Jim, I feel like we're simpatico here. You got the job."

"Really?" Jim perked up. "How about my house? Want to use it in the film?"

"Uh, maybe…." Jimmy looked around the room and liked what he saw. "I and my locations director will come by tomorrow to consider it."

"Well," Cheryl squeezed Jimmy's knee out of habit before realizing she was slipping into her old teenage ways. "Dana and I ought to get dinner out here. Jim, get the kids down here."

"You guys got kids?" Jimmy was interested. "Where are they?"

"They're somewhere around here…" Jim looked round.

"I'll give you an idea." Andy was pulling the front curtains open a bit wider as he looked out to the street. "Jimmy, I hope you got fifty bucks on you, because Jim's kids are out there washing your Beamer." Andy remembered what they had charged him to wash his car.


	5. Chapter 5

PART FIVE

Saturday was Jim's day, and a day for him to vegetate away from work on the sofa to watch football. The game was washed out, but he had a movie he had wanted to watch and responsibilities he wanted to ignore. Andy invited himself over to catch the game with him, and instead caught him watching something else.

"Hey, Andy…" Jim looked up to him. "Did Jimmy decide to use your house?"

"No," Andy reacted a bit depressed. "He and his lady locations director said it was too single man-oriented." He sighed a bit. "How about you?"

"Too…" Jim looked round his place. "Television, whatever that means…"

"What are you watching?" Andy slowly slid next to Jim and sat down by him on the sofa. His hand reached for some of Jim's popcorn.

"Attack of the Fifty-Foot Cheerleaders." Jim was transfixed by the movie. "It's the movie Cheryl made in high school. Jimmy burned me a copy."

"Oooo, sci-fi…" Andy started getting into the low-budget movie. "I love these amateur sci-fi movies. They're always so gritty."

"And Cheryl looks so hot in that cheerleader costume." Jim felt a little like a creep watching his teenaged wife on the screen.

"So tell me about the plot so far." Andy asked while his mind was possessed by the grainy black-and-white video.

"Oh, uh, Cheryl's character and her cheerleader friends made salads made from vegetables from the mad scientist's garden little knowing he's been trying to create a new strain of new giant vegetables." Jim lost a few kernels of popcorn to the floor as he watched the movie. "I think the professor's radiation treatments are about to kick in."

"My sweater's getting so tight!" Cheryl's teenage voice came from the TV's surround sound. The sound and sight of buttons bursting and seams exploding in the movie's climax made Jim's jaw drop with signs of a dirty grin before the amateur special effects. Andy instead screamed in shock and started burying his face into the sofa to try and erase the memory of his sister losing her sweater from her body.

"This has got to be the best movie ever!" Jim grinned ear to ear and felt he was reverting back into a teenager himself. "Did you see how big her boobs got!"

"Thanks a lot, Jim!" Andy became upset as he stared to his brother-in-law and not the spectacle on the TV. "I'll never get that image out of my head! I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life!"

"Hi guys…" Cheryl and Dana were coming from the market each carrying a paper bag of groceries. Andy uncontrollably looked to his sister's chest and started crying with his face buried into a pillow crying his eyes out.

"What's with him?" The two sisters started passing behind the sofa for the kitchen, but then Dana paused and looked to the TV in shock.

"Oh – my – god!" She saw an image of her partially clothed older sister super-imposed over an image of a miniaturized city. Cheryl noticed the TV too now and her eyes went livid. Her jaw dropped in shock as her past returned to haunt her. Jimmy had promised that only the two of them would ever see that movie. Either he had forgot that little promise or he was still as big a jerk as she once recalled. She grabbed the remote and turned off the DVD player.

"Jim! Where did you get that!"

"Jimmy burned me a copy!" He was grinning ear-to-ear ecstatically excited over his gift. "Why didn't you ever tell me?" His tone changed as he rose up from the sofa. "Cheryl, you, me, upstairs, right now!"

"No!" She was not about to indulge his sick new fantasy. She swatted the remote from Dana's curious fingers.

"Cheryl, this a totally new size – I mean, side of you I've never seen before." She mused having something against her sister.

"Jim!" Cheryl dropped her grocery bag on to the sofa. "What if the kids had been here? This would have scarred them for years!"

"I gave them ten bucks each to go out and play!" Jim confessed.

"Look what we got!" Gracie shined as she rode a brand-new pink bike into the house. It had streamers, a little horn and a tall flag up out of the back of the seat. Coming around the dinner table and into the living room behind her was Ruby on a similar but slightly larger pink bike. Kyle was running up behind them on foot into the house.

"How much money did you give them?" Dana wanted to know.

"Yeah!" Andy rang Gracie's little bell. "These bike's usually go for a five hundred dollars each!"

"Ruby, where'd these bikes come from?" Cheryl was completely stunned.

"Yeah, where did you get the money?" Jim asked Ruby point blank.

"We went door to door and asked our neighbors to give to the needy." Ruby answered while producing the small tin cup with the rubber lid she had collected the money in. Gracie showed her cup as well. There was a tone of stunned shock from Jim, Cheryl and Dana as they realized the girls had graduated to extortion. They weren't sure of how it looked; the fact they were unaware of the bad thing they had done or of how bad it looked on them. Cheryl's jaw dropped and her eyes went into ashamed hostility. Dana covered her mouth to keep from screaming, and Jim tried to shake his head trying to disavow what he had heard. Andy was slowly backing to the front door.

"Where did you get such an idea?" Dana finally spoke.

"From Uncle Andy."

"I was kidding!" Andy screamed. "I never thought they'd do it!" He was almost out the front door.

"You turned my daughters into extortionists!" It was Jim's turn now to get angry.

"Technically, they turned into con-artists." Andy tried to rationalize the incident then turned and ran for his life when Jim charged him. Stopping at the door, Jim slammed the door on him and turned around burning and fuming.

"Jim," Cheryl was beside herself. "We're going to have to repay back all our neighbors the money they lost."

"I know!" Jim sauntered back over defeatedly and pulled his boy up to him for solace. "There goes the money from Jimmy. Say good-bye to my pool table!"

"Hey!" Kyle was playing with the remote to the DVD Player. "Mommy's in a movie!"

"NO!" Cheryl, Dana and Jim jumped for the remote ahead of Gracie and Ruby to turn the movie back off.

END


End file.
